Word: local
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who retaliated harshly over the next four years. At the peak of the fighting, the Shah supplied helicopters and pilots to help 70,000 Pakistani soldiers put down the rebellion of 55,000 bearded, turbaned Muslim guerrillas, who were mostly armed with local versions of Britain's Edwardian-vintage Lee-Enfield rifle. Since then, the Baluch have been relatively quiet. But members of a Marxist Baluchistan People's Liberation Front have found sanctuary in Afghanistan, and resentment of Pakistan's unfulfilled promises of greater freedom lingers. So too does concern among...
...winter, they can fall to subfreezing levels. Desert scorpions and other noxious fauna abound. Prolonged exposure to Baluchistan can be fatal: when the army of Alexander the Great marched across it on the way home from India, two-thirds of the men died. But local folklore has it that Baluchistan's towering hills are carpets covering vast troves of mineral wealth. "We have a saying here," beams one local leader, the portly Khan of Kalat, "that a Baluch child may be born without socks on his feet, but when he grows every step he takes is on gold...
...trucks and triwheeled scooters that chug asthmatically around the streets of the province's capital, Quetta (pop. 250,000). Purdah (seclusion of women) and arranged marriage are accepted practices in this strict Islamic society. The chief source of relaxation is bung, a finely ground concoction of high-powered local marijuana that is chewed like tobacco or drunk as a herbal infusion. Tribal values revolve around honor, which the Baluch will go to any length to satisfy, including even paying for it. In one Baluch tribe, $400 is the traditional fine for murder, while the penalties for causing bodily injuries...
Three years after the rebellion was suppressed, the major towns of Baluchistan are still garrisoned with 30,000 Pakistani troops, mostly drawn from the populous eastern provinces of Punjab and Sind. At least 70% of the local policemen in the province are also outsiders. One Western diplomat in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad describes Baluch resentment against central government intrusion as "tremendous. For the Baluch there is no qualitative difference between the Punjabis and the army of Alexander the Great. They're both occupying powers." In the garrison town of Khuzdar, where a third of the 15,000 population...
...belonged to Teng. For 40 minutes, the diminutive Chinese leader sat perched on a blue silk sofa in Woodcock's living room as guests were served an appropriate, but unsettling, combination of Coca-Cola, Chinese orange soda pop, apple pie and egg rolls. Teng chain-smoked and drank local beer as he listened to Woodcock's plea for more living and working space for U.S. diplomats when the liaison office becomes a full-fledged embassy on March...